COPRAS Information gathering report call 2 · 2005. 3. 11. · Document Information gathering...

Document Information gathering report FP6 IST call 2 Milestone M2.6 Deliverable D09 Source Project Manager Distribution European Commission Document history Version Remarks Date0.1 First draft 23/02/20051.0 Final draft 07/03/2005

Contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Objectives 2 3. Process description 3 3.1 Methodological steps 4 3.1.1 Strategic Objectives & targeted IST projects in call 2 5 3.1.2 List of projects and project information in the public domain 6 3.1.3 Questionnaires 6 3.1.4 Information Packages 7 3.2 Results information gathering process & responses received 8 3.2.1 Open development platforms for software and services 9 3.2.2 Cognitive systems 9 3.2.3 Embedded systems 9 3.2.4 Applications and services for the mobile user and worker 9 3.2.5 Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment 10 3.2.6 GRID-based systems for solving complex problems 10 3.2.7 Improving risk management 11 3.2.8 eInclusion 11 3.3 Overall assessment available information 11 3.3.1 Quantity of information gathered 12 3.3.2 Quality of information gathered 13 3.4 Quality review information gathering process 14 4. Conclusions & recommendations 15 Annex A: List of Projects 16 Annex B: Questionnaire for projects in call 2 22 Annex C: Information package for projects in call 2 25

D09 - COPRAS Information gathering report call 2

1. Introduction The Cooperation Platform for Research and Standards (COPRAS) is an FP6 Specific Support Ac-tion (SSA) project addressing projects in calls 1, 2 and 3. It was initiated by the European standards bodies CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, together with the Open Group and W3C to improve interfacing between IST research and standards bodies, and launched 1st February 2004. It means to serve as a platform for projects in FP6 seeking to upgrade their results through standardization and provide research projects with a more cost-effective way of meeting their contractual obligation of setting up an interface with the standards world.

Not all projects in FP6 however require standardization support, and not all projects can be sup-ported through the (limited) resources COPRAS has to offer. Therefore, the project has developed a series of sequential methodological steps for selecting those projects that are likely to benefit most from closer cooperation and from participating in the COPRAS ‘Programme’. The first of these steps for each call are bundled together into Work Package 2, encompassing the gathering of stan-dards related information from all projects in a specific call.

During 2004, COPRAS addressed projects in call 1, gathering information related to their planned standardization activities, analyzing this information and matching the standardization areas tar-geted with the work areas covered by COPRAS consortium members and related organizations, and is currently in the process of developing Standardization Action Plans with a series of selected projects. The present document now establishes the report of the information gathering process ad-dressing IST research projects in FP6 call 2, and covers the following 10 Strategic Objectives:

2.3.2.3 Open development platforms for software and services 2.3.2.4 Cognitive systems 2.3.2.5 Embedded systems 2.3.2.6 Applications for the mobile user and worker 2.3.2.7 Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment 2.3.2.8 GRID-based systems for solving complex problems 2.3.2.9 Improving risk management 2.3.2.10 eInclusion

This Information gathering report briefly reiterates the objectives of the process, as well as the methodological steps followed. The core of the document describes the process’ results, both in a qualitative and quantitative way, with respect to the different Strategic Objectives addressed, and analyses quality and quantity levels, also in comparison to the results achieved when addressing projects in call 1.

It should be kept in mind that the report does not address or interpret the actual contents of the in-formation gathered, as this is encompassed by WP3: information analysis and project selection. Further, it should be noted that the data provided in this report reflect the results of the information gathering process at the time the process was formally concluded. Experience from call 1 however shows additional information will be obtained afterwards (e.g. because some projects did not launch their activities until very recently). This additional information will also be taken into ac-count as much as possible and projects concerned will still be able to benefit from the support COPRAS is offering.

2. Objectives As earlier experiences have shown, interfacing and cross-fertilization between standardization and research in many cases is vital to the success of both activities. Therefore, standardization and re-search will have to proceed in parallel as much as possible. This will ensure the standards commu-nity receives contributions at the earliest possible point in time, while at the same time safeguard-ing research projects from missing out on the latest developments and state-of-the-art in standardi-zation. Initial feedback from FP6 research projects in call 1, addressed by – and working with –COPRAS underlines this.

2


The ICT standardization environment is however an extremely dynamic environment with several hundreds of standards bodies, trade organizations and industry consortia worldwide operating in the same arena, making it relatively hard for research projects finding the organization(s) that best fit their requirements. COPRAS’ objective is therefore to act as a platform for FP6 IST projects addressing standardisation issues during the course of their research by providing a catalytic focal point for standardization activities. For this purpose, it will gather those projects that are expected to benefit from most from this support into a COPRAS ‘Programme’, and develop ‘Standardization Action Plans’ in cooperation with them, tailored to the needs of their specific projects.

In order to build the COPRAS Programme, a number of methodological steps have been defined and bundled together into Work Packages. WP2 encompasses the first series of these steps and fo-cuses on gathering standards related information from projects. Its objective is to survey all re-search projects in either one of the 3 calls for standards-related output (or other standardization re-lated requirements) ensuring those projects needing an interface with standardization are identified at the start of their lifecycle and can be invited to participate in the COPRAS Programme already during the course of their project, rather than at the end of their lifespan, as is often the case now. Therefore the information gathering process is structured in such a way that it generates the infor-mation necessary to serve as a basis for determining the research projects COPRAS will invite for cooperation during the course of its next methodological steps.

The present report aims to provide a general overview of the activities and results achieved during the information gathering process for call 2. It documents the methods applied, provides a summary of the results achieved, and establishes an overview of all projects addressed, and – to the extend possible – of the interfacing requirements with standardization put forward by responding projects. The report, together with the actual information gathered during the process, aims to serve as a ba-sis for further activity in COPRAS and establishes the starting point for the information analysis and project selection processes for call 2, starting March 2005.

3. Process description The information gathering process addressing projects in call 1 was originally scheduled to start at the beginning of October 2004. During the work on call 1 it became clear however that most pro-jects, when approached within only a few weeks after the launch of their activities, were not able to provide COPRAS the information it needed on planned standards related activities. On the other hand, the chances of obtaining this information increased significantly when projects were ap-proached within 3 to 4 months after their launch. As most projects started their work 1st September 2004, it was therefore decided to reschedule the launch of COPRAS’ WP2 activities for call 2 pro-jects to the end of November. Gathering of information from these projects was therefore carried out between 25 November 2004 and 4 March 2005. The process followed the same methodological steps that were applied when addressing call 1 (although some minor improvements were made to the process based on experience in this call) and again generated a set of data in 4 categories as de-scribed hereunder, that will be used during the activities in WP3 as a basis for selecting projects requiring an interface to standardization

1) A list of generic data (e.g. contact details, projects’ web sites, start & finish dates, etc.); most of this information was assemble at the beginning of the process as it served as a basis for subsequent steps in the process. This information is for internal usage by the COPRAS con-sortium partners; a summary is contained in Annex A to this report.

2) Public information describing projects’ objectives & goals (mostly from individual projects’ web sites and project descriptions on www.cordis.lu/ist); in view of its dynamic character, this type of information was gathered as ‘hyperlink only’.

3) Generic information on research projects’ planned standardization resources and deliver-ables, as well as on their plans for cooperating (e.g. with other projects, standards bodies or COPRAS); the first section a questionnaire send to all projects in call 2 was aimed at this type of information.

4) Information related to specific standardization areas and deliverables projects were planning to address or produce during their lifespan; this information was gathered via the second and

3


third sections of the questionnaire. All projects’ responses to all sections of the questionnaire have been aggregated into a single document for use by the COPRAS consortium partners. A summary is included in this report in section 3.2.

Between November 2004 and end of February 2005 a virtually complete overview of generic data and public information (i.e. categories 1 & 2) for 107 out of 111 selected projects could be gath-ered, i.e. only 4 projects could not be included in the information gathering process for reasons of insufficient information being available before the conclusion of the WP2 activities addressing call 2. Nevertheless, this is a considerable improvement to call 1, where 12 projects could not be in-cluded in the process for that reason. However, information related to projects’ standardization ac-tivities (i.e. categories 3 & 4) was obtained from only 52 (48,60%) projects, whereas for call 1 the response rate finally rose to 56%.

The following sections will briefly describe the methodological steps followed during the informa-tion gathering process (in section 3.1), as well as the results achieved (in section 3.2). Also, in sec-tions 3.3 and 3.4, qualitative and quantitative assessments of the results as well as a review of the processes applied are contained.

3.1 Methodological steps For the information gathering process, the methodological steps described in section 4.1.1 of the COPRAS Implementation plan (Annex A to the Quality Plan) were applied. A chronological-methodological description of the process is provided below:

1) Development of a list of projects: the purpose of this list was to assemble general data on the projects enabling COPRAS:

i) to pre-define potentially relevant areas of standardization addressed by research pro-jects,

ii) to pre-identify projects that may generate standards related output; iii) to contact the projects and; iv) to distribute questionnaires.

Building up the list of projects, similar to the experience in call 1, proved to be a continuous activity, stretching even beyond the formal conclusion of the information gathering process. Data was gathered from various (public and private) sources and a list that is 100% complete could not be established before the end of the information gathering process (although sig-nificantly more complete by the time the information gathering process was concluded, than for call 1). Experience from ongoing work on the call 1 list of projects even shows such a list may never reach 100% completeness (e.g. because some projects may not launch web-sites).

2) Development of a questionnaire for each of the Strategic Objectives. During November 2004 the call 2 questionnaire was developed. Rather than applying the call 1 questionnaire and methodology, and based on experience from the call 1 information analysis process, it was decide to define a new one, taking a different approach for the second (standards areas & de-liverables specific) section, as described in more detail in section 3.1.3 of this report. Also, the questionnaire could be filled in on-line on the COPRAS web-site, as well as returned via e-mail. The questionnaire itself can be found in Annex B.

3) Development of an information package for each of the Strategic Objectives. The Informa-tion package accompanying the questionnaire and providing projects with a background on COPRAS, highlighting the benefits from cooperating with standards bodies, was based on the call 1 Information Package, although made considerably shorter. Also it was decided not to work with Information packages targeting specific Strategic Objectives anymore, as ex-perience had shown this to generate insufficient added value. The package was developed during November 2004 and can be found in Annex C.

4) Distribution of questionnaires and information packages among targeted projects. Question-naires and information packages were send out to all call 2 project coordinators for which contact details could be established before the end of the information gathering process, ac-cording to the following table.

4


Strategic Objective Material send2.3.2.3 Open development platforms for software and services 25th November 20042.3.2.4 Cognitive systems 6th December 20042.3.2.5 Embedded systems 3rd December 20042.3.2.6 Applications for the mobile user and worker 30th November 20042.3.2.7 Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment 25th November 20042.3.2.8 GRID-based systems for solving complex problems 6th December 20042.3.2.9 Improving risk management 30th November 20042.3.2.10 eInclusion 25th November 2004

Although most projects received the material as described above, several of them, for which project coordinators’ contact details could not be established in time were send the question-naire and Information package at a later stage during the information gathering process.

5) Distribution of reminders to those projects that have not responded. Projects that did not re-spond (either by filling in the questionnaire or otherwise) before Christmas 2004, received reminders early January 2005 inviting them to return their response within two weeks, i.e. by mid-January.

6) Contacting projects that have not reacted to the reminder. During the second half of January 2005 and the first half of February 2005, non-responding projects were contacted by tele-phone. Similar to call 1, specific attention was paid to those projects that were most likely to generate standards related output and to obtaining responses from STREP and IP projects that should be the most likely cooperation partners for COPRAS based on the nature of their activities and output.

7) Aggregation of responses received. During the second half of February, responses received were aggregated and systematically put together to serve as a basis for the call 2 information analysis process, and allowing COPRAS to compare different Strategic Objectives, and de-tect similarities from a standardization perspective. A short summary of these aggregated re-sults can be found in section 3.2.

3.1.1 Strategic objectives and targeted IST projects in call 1 For call 2, COPRAS focused on 8 out of 10 Strategic Objectives as described in the Introduction section of this report. In these areas, a total of 111 projects were selected by the Commission, out of which COPRAS was able to sufficiently identify 107 during the course of the information gath-ering process.

Although not all of these projects were expected to generate standards related output (e.g. SSA or CA projects in general have different focuses), it was decide to target all projects as experience in call 1 showed that several projects that may not produce standards themselves may have valuable input to COPRAS’ activities and results, as they still may be concerned with (the dissemination of) standards related material in the Strategic Objectives. This has resulted in 107 projects in call 2 re-ceiving the information package and questionnaire from COPRAS. The distribution of these pro-jects over the Strategic Objectives is described hereunder.

Strategic Objectives in Call 1 addressed in the information gathering process

Selected projects

Targeted projects

2.3.2.3 Open development platforms for software and services 15 14 2.3.2.4 Cognitive systems 8 8 2.3.2.5 Embedded systems 17 16 2.3.2.6 Applications for the mobile user and worker 20 19 2.3.2.7 Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment 17 16 2.3.2.8 GRID-based systems for solving complex problems 12 12 2.3.2.9 Improving risk management 9 9 2.3.2.10 eInclusion 13 13 Total 111 107

5


A complete list of these projects, also including information on responses received, is contained in Annex A.

3.1.2 List of projects & project information in the public domain The list of projects establishes a necessary tool for COPRAS carrying out its activities in the other Work Packages. The list therefore has to be as complete as possible, and also has to be updated regularly. Aim of this activity is to gather information that may help to categorize projects and to pre-identify potentially relevant areas of standardization, but primarily to address and contact pro-jects. Although information had to be gathered from various public and private sources, by the end of the call 2 information gathering process, for most projects following information was available:

1) Acronym, title and contract number of the project;

2) Coordinating partner, contact person and contact details

3) Project web site and dedicated web page on the CORDIS web site, where information on the project can be found;

4) Type of project (e.g. Integrated Project, Network of Excellence, Specific Targeted Research Project, etc.)

5) Project budget & number of partners;

6) Start & duration of the project;

7) Responsible Commission Project Officer.

Similar to cal1, the list of projects also contains data that have not been gathered from public sources. Therefore it is not attached in its entirety to this report although a shortened version can be found in Annex A.

The list of projects contains hyperlinks to the two main sources of public information on research projects’ goals, objectives, work packages, available documentation, contacts, etc. These are the individual projects’ web sites and the web pages on the CORDIS web site, providing overviews for each of the individual projects. Although there are differences with respect to quantity and depth of information provided via these sources, a fairly consistent range of information is usually available, including a project overview, an event calendar, contact information and a project structure. As section 3.3 will describe in more depth, the amount of publicly available information, both through individual projects’ web sites as via the CORDIS pages was considerably higher for call 2 than it was for call 1 several months after the launch of most projects.

3.1.3 Questionnaires Similar to the approach taken for call 1, the call 2 questionnaire again contained a first section (en-quiring into standardization intentions, resources, initial contacts, etc.) as well as a specific section (focusing on a precise description of their standards related activities and deliverables). Experience in call 1 however had shown that both sections could be improved, easing COPRAS’ work during subsequent Work Packages.

During the information gathering process in call 1, it had shown there are (groups of) projects that do touch upon standards issues but do not require COPRAS’ help (mostly because they have ar-ranged this through one or more of their consortium partners). Also it had shown that certain pro-jects do not intend to interface with standards bodies although they may address standards related issues (e.g. by carrying out project-internal evaluations of existing standards). For this purpose it was decided to insert an additional question in the first section, containing a specific reference to respondents’ willingness to cooperate with COPRAS and other standards bodies (question 1.2).

# Question 1.1 Will your project deliver technologies, specifications or other outputs that are intended to

be European or global standards or otherwise may contribute to standardization work? 1.2 Is your project in this respect prepared to cooperate with standards bodies, and have you

already planned this cooperation? Do you require COPRAS help in this process? 1.3 Does your project have specific work packages addressing activities required to interface

6


with standards bodies and if so, how many man/months are budgeted for this? 1.4 Is your project in the process of deploying or coordinating standardization related activity

with other EU funded projects either in FP6 or other Framework Programmes and if so, could you please list the other projects involved?

1.5 Is your project already in the process of deploying standardization related activity in coor-dination with one of more standards bodies or industry consortia and if so, which activity does this concern and with organizations are involved?

Prior to targeting projects in call 1 it was decided to tailor questionnaires to Strategic Objectives by pre-identifying 8 different standardization areas in the second (specific) section for each of them. Although the questionnaire used ‘open’ questions rather than multiple choice, this would make it easier, and less time-consuming for projects filling them out. Although this approach was success-ful in obtaining a high level of detail in the responses, the usefulness of the pre-defined areas throughout the consecutive steps in WP3 and WP4 was not clearly established. In addition, initial scans of publicly available information on call 2 projects initially indicated considerably less simi-larity between projects in one Strategic Objectives, at least as far as (potential) standardization tar-gets were concerned.

For these reasons it was decided not to use pre-defined areas of standardization anymore, and con-sequently not to work with Strategic Objective specific questionnaires for call 2. Instead, projects were asked the following 4 questions and were also invited to indicate for each of the areas, issues or deliverables they identified, whether it concerned key issues, important issues, or only minor issues.

# Question 2.1 Please indicate the area(s) where your project intends to contribute to ongoing standardi-

zation or to standardization processes yet to be initiated (maximum 4) 2.2 Please specify which issues, elements or aspects in the areas indicated in 2.1 your project

intends to standardize (maximum 4) 2.3 Please specify the nature of the deliverables (i.e. technologies, specifications, guideline

documents, tests, etc.) you plan to deliver in the areas indicated in 2.1 (maximum 4) 2.4 Please indicate the timeframe in which your project plans to produce the deliverables indi-

cated in 2.1

Although it was realized that confronting project coordinators with these 4 relatively open ques-tions could negatively influence the response rate, the quality of the answers and, more specifically, their usefulness during the next steps in WP2 and WP3 (being process oriented rather than content oriented) would most likely compensate for the lower (i.e. quantitative) response rate.

Also, taking a different approach in the call 2 information gathering process (although the call 1 process had been quite successful), and hence the possibility to compare the effect of the two ap-proaches, was also believed to generate additional input for the (interim) Generic Material (deliver-able D15).

Finally, the third section, inviting projects to issue any additional comments with respect to the questionnaire or related to their project interfacing with standardization remained intact as it was during call 1. An example of a questionnaire can be found in Annex B.

3.1.4 Information packages The intention of the Information Package was to provide research projects with comprehensive background information on COPRAS as well as to inform them on benefits IST research projects could enjoy when cooperating with standards bodies. Information packages originally send to pro-jects in call 1 were – similar to the questionnaires – specific to Strategic Objectives, also underlin-ing standards bodies’ current and specific activities relevant to the addressed by research projects.

For call 2 it was however decided to produce a smaller, generic Information Package. Reasons un-derlying this decision were similar to the reasons for addressing call 2 with a generic questionnaire rather than with a Strategic Objective specific one. The information package, that still contained information on the benefits of standardization and a description of the COPRAS project, as well as background information on the consortium partners and the ICT Standards Board, although in a somewhat condensed format, was prepared during November 2004 and can be found in Annex C.

7


3.2 Results information gathering process & responses received During the information gathering process for call 2, between 25 November 2005 and 18 February 2005, sufficient data on projects and their standardization objectives could be found although the distribution of the information over the 4 categories differs considerably from the results achieved for call 1, as the following sections will show.

A set of generic data was obtained for the 107 out of a total of 111 targeted projects, i.e. more than 96% of selected projects in call 2 could actually be identified and addressed, which is slightly higher than the 93% that was achieved in call 1. In addition, 94 individual project web sites were found to be launched and additional public information was available for all but 1 of the 107 identi-fied projects on the CORDIS pages, as indicated in the table below.

Strategic Objectives in Call 1: availability of individual projects’ web sites

and dedicated pages on the CORDIS web site

Tar-geted

projects

Web sites

Pages on

CORDIS

Open development platforms for software and services 14 14 14 Cognitive systems 8 8 8 Embedded systems 16 15 16 Applications for the mobile user and worker 19 14 19 Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment 16 13 16 GRID-based systems for solving complex problems 12 12 12 Improving risk management 9 6 8 eInclusion 13 12 13 Total 107 94 106

As the table shows, already 94 projects (88%) in call 2 had their web sites up and running by the time the information gathering process was concluded, while additional information was available for almost 100% of the projects, from the CORDIS web pages. This is a considerable improvement when compared to the results for call 1, where these figures were 77% and 96%. Although there is some deviation across the strategic objectives, this deviation is not as severe as experienced in the information gathering process for call 1.

Although the amount of public information that could be gathered on the projects is significantly larger when compared to call 1, only 48,6% of the projects addressed did actually responded to the questionnaire by the time the information gathering process had to be concluded. This is considera-bly lower than in call 1, but still within the target range of 40-50%. Also, as the table below indi-cates, there are (very) large differences between the response rates across Strategic Objectives.

Strategic Objective Projects targeted

Re-sponses received

Re-sponse

rate

Open development platforms for software and services 14 10 71,43% Cognitive systems 8 1 12,5% Embedded systems 16 5 31,25% Applications for the mobile user and worker 19 8 42,11% Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment 16 9 56,25% GRID-based systems for solving complex problems 12 8 66,67% Improving risk management 9 2 22,22% eInclusion 13 9 69,23% Total 107 52 48,60%

Overall, 52 responses were received, out of which 47 were actually filled-out questionnaires, while e-mails or phone conversations with 5 projects indicated they either didn’t expect to touch upon standards related issues at all, were not able to judge whether their project would generate stan-dards related output, or for other reasons expected not to be needing COPRAS’ support.

8


Similar to the process for call 1, responses from all projects were aggregated in a single document for internal use by the COPRAS consortium partners and for the purpose of analyzing the informa-tion provided during the execution of COPRAS’ WP3 (information analysis and project selection). The following sections however briefly summarize the feedback in each of the Strategic Objective, thereby focusing on the overall interest in cooperation with standards bodies as well as highlighting those areas that were identified as important or key issues.

3.2.1 Open development platforms for software and services Almost two thirds of projects in this Strategic Objective responded to the questionnaire, making it one of the areas where the best results were achieved in terms of direct feedback from projects. Moreover, 6 out of 10 responding projects clearly indicated they expected to contribute to stan-dardization processes and also indicated they would welcome support from COPRAS.

Only half of the projects have already some kind of relationship with standards bodies in place, ranging from initial contacts to assessment of existing standards. Organizations frequently men-tioned by projects include OMG, OASIS and W3C.

As the second section of the questionnaire contained open questions rather than pre-defined areas of standardizations, communality between standardization areas indicated is less than it was in call 1. However, projects mention Web services & languages, middleware, and architecture issues as areas they will focus on. Relevant deliverables will among others include interoperability tests, on-tologies, guideline documents, reference architectures and reference implementations.

Overall quality of feedback (i.e. the level of detail and completeness of the response) was good in this Strategic Objective, as was the quantity. Taking into account the positive feedback towards cooperation with COPRAS and the additional information available from other sources, there is expectedly sufficient input material available for the next steps encompassed by WP3.

3.2.2 Cognitive systems Although for all of the 8 projects in this Strategic Objective information is available from their web sites as well as from the CORDIS pages, only a single project responded to the questionnaire (and this single response indicated the project did not expect to touch upon standardization issues what-soever.

Therefore, as several efforts trying to obtain more specific information from these projects on their planned interfacing with standards bodies have not led to concrete results, it is not unlikely that the need for COPRAS support – for various reasons – is quite low in this Strategic Objective, if not completely absent.

Analysis of publicly available information during the execution of WP3 will have to make clear whether there are projects that could possibly benefit from cooperation with COPRAS and whether there is a consequential need to acquire some additional information on these projects after all.

3.2.3 Embedded systems Although the overall response from projects in ‘Embedded systems’ was not high with only 31,25%, the quality of the feedback was relatively good, and 2 projects indicated they would wel-come the possibility of cooperating with COPRAS, although part of the work projects envisage simply consists of monitoring standardization.

Due to the low response rate it is however not possible to clearly identify one or more areas of standardization that as being regarded more important than others according to the responding pro-jects, or even one or more standards bodies that projects plan to interface with. Design methodolo-gies, software engineering standards and system security are however among the areas mentioned, while CEN/CENELEC and OMG are among several standards bodies identified to interface with.

As almost all projects in this Strategic Objective have their web sites up and running, there may not be a need to target projects for additional information, as the lack of quantity in projects’ response can most likely be compensated by publicly available information.

9


3.2.4 Applications for the mobile user and worker With 19 projects addressed, this Strategic Objective is the largest one targeted by COPRAS in call 2. At first sight the response rate of 42,11% (8 responses) seems reasonable in the overall perspec-tive, but a quick scan teaches that quite a number of projects indicated they do not require COPRAS’s support. One of the reasons for this is that the number of CA and SSA projects (that usually do not generate standards related output) in this Strategic Objective is relatively large (7 out of 20).

Only 2 projects clearly indicated welcoming COPRAS’ support and also provided a good overview of their intentions with respect to standardization, although standards bodies to interface with were not yet identified. Nevertheless, there seems little overlap between projects, as multimodal interac-tion and semantics are mentioned as focus areas as well as security mechanisms.

In this Strategic objective, both the quality and the quantity of the response are relatively poor. In addition, a relatively low number of projects have launched their web site, for which reason it may not be possible to compensate the lack of project specific information with public information. Fur-ther analysis during WP3 will have to show whether there is a need to gather additional information from projects in this area.

3.2.5 Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment Response in this Strategic Objective was relatively good with 9 out of 16 projects actually respond-ing to the questionnaire. Moreover, almost all of these projects are planning contributions to stan-dardization, although not all of them already have concrete ideas with respect to the standards bod-ies they plan to interface with. Nevertheless, most projects appreciate the support COPRAS is of-fering although many of them are not yet in a position to judge whether they would actually require this support.

As far as targeted standards bodies are concerned, only a few projects have already initiated con-tacts or cooperation, i.e. with ISO/IEC (MPEG). For most of them it is however too early in the process to determine this.

The standardization areas addressed by projects in this Strategic Objective are very diverse and range from Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Scalable Vector Graphics to video com-pression, Digital Rights Management and 3DTV. This diversity can also be seen where the issues and deliverables are concerned, and range from convergence and peer-to-peer technology to con-tent representation and content delivery mechanisms.

Overall, the quantity and quality of the information gathered is quite good in this Strategic Objec-tive and, taking into account that most of the projects also had their web sites up and running, there is no to generate additional material in view of the activities in WP3.

3.2.6 GRID-based systems for solving complex problems Two thirds of the GRID-projects addressed responded to the COPRAS questionnaire, which is con-siderably above the average response rate of almost 48,6%. Most of these projects indicate they could potentially contribute to standardization and several projects therefore indicate support from COPRAS would be welcome.

Several of the projects in this Strategic Objective have already established contacts with standards bodies (GGF and OASIS are mentioned more than once), but internal cooperation (i.e. among the projects themselves) is also very strong. This may also be encouraged by the NextGRID project that specifically focuses on cooperation between GRID projects and standards bodies. It would also appreciate the help of COPRAS in this process although it is too early to determine which stan-dards bodies this will be.

OSGA, architectures, ontologies and languages are among the standardization areas and issues identified by projects. In addition, NextGRID is in the process of compiling a list of existing stan-dards that can be used as a baseline for its research. It is also compiling a list of industry specifica-tions which have not been standardized yet but which will either impact NextGRID research or will be candidates for being impacted by the research carried out in NextGRID.

10


Response in this Strategic Objective was quite good. Cooperation between COPRAS, NextGRID and other projects has already started and is expected to generate some good results in terms of standards related output. Also, sufficient information is available from public sources as all projects have their web site launched and information on all of them is available from the CORDIS pages.

3.2.7 Improving risk management With a response rate of 22,22%, ‘Improving risk management’ generated one of the lowest result in terms of feedback to the COPRAS questionnaire. Although two projects responded, only a one in-dicated it would be making concrete contributions to standardization (although it has not yet deter-mined to which organization), and also would appreciate the support of COPRAS in this process, also because its resources allocated to standardization are limited.

When trying to evaluate the specific areas of standardization, very little can be said in generic terms due to the lack of response. Ultra Wide Band communications is however among the issues addressed. Further information, also where the other projects in this area are concerned, will have to come from analyzing public information on projects’ web sites and CORDIC pages.

Although the quality of the feedback received is quite good, the low response rate, in combination with the fact that several projects in this Strategic Objective have not yet launched their web site, may cause the need for COPRAS to generate additional information prior to, or during the first weeks of the information analysis process.

3.2.8 eInclusion With a response rate of almost 70%, the information gathering process was very successful with respect to the eInclusion projects. The majority of the responding projects also expect to generate output that could be passed through standardization processes, while a smaller group may generate relevant output but is not yet able to determine this. Several projects have already determined the standards interface, while others would appreciate COPRAS’ help in these processes.

Most of the responding projects have not yet started their interfacing with standards bodies and do not have specific resources or work packages reserved for this activity; those few that have, envis-age cooperating with W3C and CEN.

As far as projects’ standardization focus is concerned, Web accessibility, multimodal interaction, eye-tracking and audio-logical diagnostic testing are among the areas indicated, while data formats, interfaces, guidelines and diagnostic tests constitute the main issues and deliverables projects ex-pect as output to standards bodies.

Not only the quality and the quantity of information received as feedback to the COPRAS ques-tionnaire are good in this Strategic Objective, but information on virtually all projects’ background and targets is available from individual projects’ web sites, as well as from the CORDIS pages. The amount of information therefore should be regarded sufficient as a basis for the information analy-sis process.

3.3 Overall assessment available information Despite the various sources of information addressed by COPRAS throughout its WP2 activities, prime objective remains obtaining project specific feedback on standards related activities, by means of a questionnaire. The 52 answers that were received to this questionnaire generated a re-sponse rate of 48,6%. Although this is within the 40-50% target range set in the COPRAS Imple-mentation plan, the results – at least from a quantitative perspective – are lower than the response rate of more than 56% finally achieved for call 1. There are however a number of aspects that should be taken into account when assessing this result.

First, as already documented in section 3.1.3, when re-drafting the questionnaire, it was taken into account the quantity of the response could be negatively affected by not pre-defining areas of stan-dardization. Nevertheless, inviting projects to be more precise in their responses was also expected to increase the usefulness of the feedback during consecutive process steps. Whether this increase in quality is actually demonstrable will have to be seen during the execution of WP3 process steps for call 2 projects.

11


Second, and similar to the result in call 1, the intensive follow-up accompanying the distribution of the Information package and questionnaire, leading to personally contacting the vast majority of project coordinators, also leads to the conclusion that the majority of those projects that actually plan to produce relevant standards related output are included in the 48,6% providing their feed-back.

Third, as section 3.3.1 will show a bit more in detail, the availability of public information via indi-vidual projects’ web sites as well as via the CORDIS pages is significantly (12,5%) higher for call 2 as it was for call 1. At least from a quantitative point of view, this may provide some compensa-tion for the lower questionnaire response rate. On the other hand it should be mentioned that the response rate for the type of projects establishing COPRAS’ main target (notably the IPs and STREPs) again is considerably lower when compared to call 1.

The following sections will briefly discuss and evaluate the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the results of the information gathering process for call 2.

3.3.1 Quantity of information gathered Although the overall quantitative target was met, it should be recognized STREPS and IP projects establish the prime focus for COPRAS as these are more likely to deliver standards related output, than NoE, SSA or CA projects. Specifically during the third step of the information gathering proc-ess (personal contacts by telephone), effort was put into obtaining responses from these first two types of projects. The question therefore is whether information from these projects is indeed over-represented.

Projects addressed Responses received Type of project

Call 2 Call 1 Call 2 Call 1 STREP 54 51% 77 47% 25 48% 52 57% IP 28 26% 45 27% 13 25% 25 26% NoE 7 7% 26 16% 3 6% 9 10% SSA & CA 18 18% 16 10% 11 21% 6 7% Total 107 100% 164 100% 52 100% 92 100%

As the table above shows, for call 2 the number of responses received from the main target group, i.e. the STREPs and IPs was slightly below average (i.e. lower than the pro rata share of these pro-jects in the total number of projects addressed in call 2), while for STREPs this was in fact clearly above average in call 1.

However, as experience in call 1 already demonstrated, as far as IPs are concerned, this is most likely caused by the fact that that many of these projects, due to their size, have several consortium members (e.g. larger ICT companies) that are capable of dealing with the project’s standardization issues during the normal course of their activities and therefore may not feel requiring interfacing through COPRAS.

The table also shows that in call 1 the response rate for NoEs as well as for SSA & CA projects was relatively low (which would be the expected outcome), while there is no significant deviation from the average response rate for these projects as far as call 2 is concerned (although there is a somewhat large number of SSA projects in call 2 responding). For IPs the response rate is very consistent with the pro rate share of projects addressed in call 1 as well as in call 2.

As far as publicly available information is concerned, numbers are considerably higher when com-pared to call 1. Information from the CORDIS pages is available for all but one of the projects ad-dressed, while the percentage of projects that had launched their individual web site by the time the information gathering process closed was already 88% (compared to 77% for call 1). Nevertheless, the overall picture between call 1 and call 2 is quite comparable, with the number of STREPs hav-ing launched a web site being below average, the NoEs generating the highest numbers, and both the SSA/CA and IP projects scoring above average.

12


Projects addressed Web site available

Type of project Call 2 Call 1 Call 2 Call 1

STREP 54 77 45 83% 54 70% IP 28 45 26 93% 37 82% NoE 7 26 7 100% 23 88% SSA & CA 18 16 16 89% 13 81% Total 107 164 94 88% 127 77%

Overall, the quantitative result of the information gathering process for call 2 is not as good as it was for call 1. Although the lower feedback rate from the questionnaire may be compensated by the high amount of publicly available information, it should still be recognized that the number of responses from STREPs is lower than expected. However, as the response rate remains comforta-bly within the target range (and the call 1 + call 2 aggregate response rate at 53%), the WP2 activi-ties addressing call 2 managed to achieve the quantitative targets.

3.3.2 Quality of information gathered The level of detail provided in the publicly available material(i.e. the generic information on the CORDIS web pages, project fact sheets, as well as in the first section of the questionnaire, a rea-sonably consistent level of detail is provided, although there are obviously some exceptions to this general rule in both directions.

Although, as already recognized in the call 1 information gathering report, the dynamic character of individual projects’ web sites makes it difficult to assess the level of detail of the information pro-vided many projects have adopted a reasonably consistent menu structure, providing access to in-formation such as a general project overview, an overview of work packages & envisaged results, consortium partners, relevant events, news, publications, links, contact information, etc.).

Summarizing this assessment of publicly available information on projects in call 2 it can be con-cluded the level of detail provided here is sufficient to serve as a basis for further analysis in WP3.

When addressing the level of detail provided in the responses to the questionnaires, a differentia-tion first has to be made between those projects that did respond by indicating they did not expect to touch upon standardization issues (and hence did not foresee the cooperation with standards bod-ies or COPRAS) and those projects that did expect to interface with standards bodies and/or COPRAS. Subsequently, in the second category a distinction has to be made between those pro-jects providing information that can be regarded sufficient in view of the information analysis process, and those projects that did not. The following table shows the distribution of responses over these 3 categories, per strategic objective.

Strategic Objective Does seek coopera-

tion

Doesn’t seek co-operation

Insuffi-cient in-

formation Total

Open development platforms 6 11,5% 3 6% 1 2% 10 20% Cognitive systems 0 0% 1 2% 0 0% 1 2% Embedded systems 3 6% 2 4% 0 0% 5 10% Applications for mobile user & worker 3 6% 5 10% 0 0% 8 16% Cross media content for leisure & ent. 7 13% 1 2% 1 2% 9 17% GRID-based systems 6 11,5% 1 2% 1 2% 8 16% Improving risk management 1 2% 1 0% 0 0% 2 2% eInclusion 9 17% 0 0% 0 0% 9 17% Total 35 67% 14 27% 3 6% 52 100%

When analysing the responses, it can be concluded the level of detail provided is insufficient for only 3 out of 52 responses (6%). Although comparing these figure with previous results in call 1 is complicated due to the different approach of the questionnaire, the Information gathering report for call 1 indicated 12 out of 91 responses (12%) to be insufficient (however, the call 1 report did not identify projects that did not intended to cooperate with standards bodies or COPRAS).

13


The 35 projects indicating they expect somehow addressing standardization issues and/or (in prin-ciple) are open to cooperation with COPRAS correspond to almost 33% of projects addressed in call 2. Moreover, more that half of the standardization areas, issues and deliverables identified by respondents were characterized as ‘key’, instead of just ‘important’ or even ‘minor’.

Although final conclusions cannot be drawn until the conclusion of the information analysis proc-ess, when integrating the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results achieved in the call 2 information gathering process, it is not unlikely the different approach taken in the call 2 question-naire indeed generated data that are more useful from a qualitative perspective, thus compensating for the loss on the quantitative side.

3.4 Quality review information gathering process The success of the information gathering process is crucial to the success of COPRAS’ activities in subsequent Work Packages. In call 1 it has been proven that the high response target for the ques-tionnaire is actually necessary to provide a basis for COPRAS being able to select the projects that will clearly benefit from cooperation with standardization, and consequently for being able to start the process of developing Standardization Action Plans with at least 8% of projects addressed. Al-though the response rate is not as high as it was for call 1, as already documented in the previous sections, the expectation is that the increased quality of the data will make up for this.

Nevertheless, as a sanity check, it should be reviewed whether all steps have been executed as planned; when looking at the applicable sections in the Quality Plan, the project team should have implement the following procedures to achieve its targets:

1) ensure it has an overview of all relevant projects containing all data, necessary for the project to carry out the work in subsequent Work Packages (i.e. WP3 & WP4);

2) tailor Information Packages and questionnaires to specific Strategic Objectives;

3) send Commission Project Officers the information package and questionnaire as well;

4) give project coordinators at least one month to fill out and return the questionnaire;

5) send projects that have not responded within this timeframe a reminder and invited them to respond within 2 weeks; contact those still not responding within that timeframe by tele-phone;

6) in case of non-response, ask the respective EU Project Officer for guidance.

As already documented in the previous sections, for call 2 the questionnaire and Information Pack-age were not targeted but had a more generic nature. Also, Commission Project Officers were not send the Information packages and questionnaires, as a result of limited feedback received from this in call 1; instead call 2 Project Officers were approached directly by COPRAS for the purpose of presenting its benefits and objectives at concertation meetings. Unfortunately little feedback was received so far. Other procedural steps were followed as originally planned, although the last step was not implemented as it was not regarded necessary in view of the considerable increase in re-sponse achieved after contacting the projects by phone.

When looking at the development of the call 2 response rate throughout the 3 process steps, it can be concluded there is a significant difference when compared to call 1. Although initial distribution as well as sending out reminders triggered a certain level of response, most reactions came in after project coordinators had been personally approached by one of the COPRAS consortium partners. This is quite different from the experience in call 1, that showed a gradual increase in response throughout the consecutive process steps. Moreover, this pattern was not significantly different be-tween on-line responses and returned questionnaires.

Resulting re-sponses Percentage

Step in information gathering process Call 2 Call 1 Call 2 Call 1

Sending out information package & questionnaire 14 24 26,92% 26,37% Sending out reminders 7 32 13,46% 35,17%

14


15

Contacting projects by phone 31 36 59,61% 38,46% Total 52 92 100,00% 100,00%

As experience has shown, most of the input for improving the information gathering process origi-nates from subsequent process steps, specifically in WP3. This will also be the case for call 2, and specifically for the new elements that have been introduced such as the non-targeted questionnaire without pre-defined standardization areas. Nevertheless, the results, also for call 2 do not seem to call for contingency measures as described in the Quality Plan to be put in place.

4. Conclusions & recommendations Based on experience from the information analysis and project selection processes for call 1, sev-eral changes were made to the information gathering process addressing projects in call 2. These changes mainly concerned the structure and contents of the questionnaire and aimed to improve the mapping of the feedback from individual projects with the objectives of, and methodology applied during, the process steps in WP3. As a result, overall feedback from the call 2 information gather-ing process was lower from a quantitative perspective (although still within the targets set) but has a higher ‘degree of usefulness’ in view of the process steps to follow in the consecutive Work Packages. The information gathering process for call 2 therefore should be qualified as successful.

As the results show, almost a third of the projects addressed indicated they would (potentially) be producing standards related output and/or would appreciate or require support from COPRAS in relation to these activities. Contrary to call 1 however, the deviation between projects in the 8 Stra-tegic Objectives addressed is quite large, with very low response rate in ‘Cognitive systems’ and in ‘Improving risk management’. This may lead to COPRAS having to concentrate on only a limited number of Strategic Objectives in this call. Nevertheless, the good quality of the feedback in the other areas will be a sufficient basis to select and invite between 9 and 11 projects (8 - 10%) for participation in the COPRAS Programme as planned at the start of the project.

As a result of one of the recommendations from the call 1 information gathering process, for call 2 projects were given the opportunity to fill out the questionnaire on-line. Although there is no reason for assuming this actually led to higher quantities of feedback, the quality of the on-line feedback is demonstrably better. Also the possibility for project coordinators to choose either for answering on-line or by returning the questionnaire may have had a positive effect, as for several Strategic Objec-tives the amount of on-line feedback is clearly over-represented.

When reviewing the different steps in the process, and the amount of feedback these steps gener-ated, it shows that considerably higher effort was necessary, specifically during the last step where project coordinators were contacted personally, to achieve the targeted results. The difference with call 1 (where feedback rates increased throughout the consecutive process steps) may be partly caused by the Christmas holidays, and partly by the fact that COPRAS has had little opportunity to address call 2 projects at concertation meetings. Better communication and marketing of COPRAS’ benefits for research projects, prior to or during the information gathering process therefore re-mains an important element for acquiring the targeted results, as it is in the overall strategy for cre-ating awareness on the interface between IST research and standardization.

Finally, feedback from the call 2 information gathering process indicate that postponing it for 2 months has contributed significantly to obtaining better results. Moreover, prolonging the process would most likely have generated even better results, not only because of differences between pro-jects’ launch dates (some projects did not launch until November 2004 – or even January 2005), but also because some projects’ structure makes it complicated to identify standards related output at an early point in time. Therefore, the information gathering report should not be regarded or treated as the document finalizing the information gathering process. Experience from call 1 teaches valuable input may be received at a later point in time, and even projects that could not even be included in the information gathering process may eventually be invited to attend the kick off meeting, or even cooperate with COPRAS on the development of Standardization Action Plans.

Annex A: List of projects The following FP6 IST projects were identified and targeted by COPRAS during the call 2 information gathering process, in the 8 Strategic Objectives addressed.

2.3.2.3 “Open development platforms for software and services”

Acronym Project name

Type Start date End date Question-naire send

Response received

AMIGO Ambient Intelligence for the networked home environment IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 25-11-2004 Yes AOSD-Europe European Network of Excellence on Aspect-Oriented Software Development NoE 01-09-2004 29-02-2008 25-11-2004 Not yet ASG Adaptive Services Grid IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 25-11-2004 Yes

CALIBRE Co-ordination Action for Libre Software Engineering for Open Development Platforms for Software and Services CA 01-06-2004 31-05-2006 25-11-2004 Yes

DeDiSys Dependable Distributed Systems STREP 01-10-2004 30-06-2007 25-11-2004 Yes EDOS Environment for the Development and Distribution of Open Source Software STREP 25-11-2004 Not yet GORDA Open Replication of Databases STREP 01-10-2004 30-09-2007 25-11-2004 Yes

INFRAWEBS Intelligent Framework for Generating Open (Adaptable) Development Plat-forms for Web-Service Enabled Applications Using Semantic Web Technolo-gies, Distributed Decision Support Units and Multi-Agent#

STREP 01-08-2004 31-01-2007 25-11-2004 Not yet

MADAM Mobility and ADaptation enAbling Middleware STREP 01-09-2004 28-02-2007 25-11-2004 Yes MODELWARE MODELing solution for softWARE systems IP 31-07-200601-08-2004 25-11-2004 Yes RODIN Rigorous Open Development Environment for Complex Systems STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 25-11-2004 Yes SeCSE Service Centric Systems Engineering IP 31-08-200801-09-2004 25-11-2004 Not yet SODIUM Service Oriented Development In a Unified fraMework STREP 01-07-2004 31-12-2006 25-11-2004 Yes WS2 Web Services and Semantics SSA 30-06-200601-07-2004 25-11-2004 Yes

2.3.2.4 “Cognitive systems”

Acronym Project nameType Start date End date Question-

naire send Response received

COSPAL COgnitive Systems using Perception-Action Learning STREP 06-12-2004 Not yet CoSy Cognitive Systems for Cognitive Assistants IP 31-08-200801-09-2004 06-12-2004 Not yet GNOSYS An Abstraction Architecture for Cognitive Agents STREP 06-12-2004 Not yet JAST Joint-Action Science and Technology IP 06-12-2004 Not yet MACS Multi-sensory Autonomous Cognitive Systems Interacting with Dynamic Envi- STREP 06-12-2004 Not yet


ronments for Perceiving and Learning Affordances MindRACES From Reactive to Anticipatory Cognitive Embodied Systems STREP 01-10-2004 30-09-2007 06-12-2004 Yes

ROBOT-CLUB ROBotic Open-architecture Technology for Cognition, Understanding and Be-haviors IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2009 06-12-2004 Not yet

SPARK Spatial-temporal patterns for action-oriented perception in roving robots STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 06-12-2004 Not yet 2.3.2.5 “Embedded systems”



ASSIST2 Embedded Systems Design NoE 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 03-12-2004 Not yet

ASSERT Automated proof based System and Software Engineering for Real-Time Ap-plications IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 03-12-2004 Not yet

BETSY BEing on Time Saves energYContinuous multimedia experiences on net-worked handheld devices STREP 01-09-2004 28-02-2007 03-12-2004 Not yet

CEmACS Complex Embedded Automotive Control Systems STREP 01-08-2004 31-07-2007 03-12-2004 Not yet COBIS Collaborative Business Items STREP 03-12-2004 Not yet COMPARE COMPonent Approach for Real-time and Embedded STREP 01-06-2004 30-11-2006 03-12-2004 Yes DECOS Dependable Embedded Components and Systems IP 01-07-2004 30-06-2007 03-12-2004 Yes EMBEDDED WISSENTS

Embedded Systems for Exploration and Control featuring Wireless Sensor Networks CA 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 03-12-2004 Not yet

EMTECH Embedded Systems TECHnologies SSA 31-08-200601-09-2004 03-12-2004 Yes GOLLUM Generic Open Link-Layer API for Unified Media Access STREP 03-12-2004 Not yet HIJA High-Integrity Java Application STREP 01-06-2004 31-08-2006 03-12-2004 Yes HIPEAC High-Performance Embedded Architectures and Compilers NoE 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 03-12-2004 Not yet

HYCON Hybrid Control : taming heterogeneity and complexity of networked embedded systems NoE 15-09-2004 31-08-2008 03-12-2004 Not yet

ICODES Interface- and Communication based Design of Embedded Systems STREP 01-08-2004 31-07-2007 03-12-2004 Yes NeCST Networked Control Systems Tolerant to faults STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 03-12-2004 Not yet RUNES Reconfigurable Ubiquitous Networked Embedded Systems IP 01-09-2004 31-01-2007 03-12-2004 Not yet

2.3.2.6 “Application for the mobile user and worker”



17


AMIRA Advanced Multi-modal Intelligence for Remote Assistance STREP 01-07-2004 30-06-2006 30-11-2004 Not yet

CASCOM Context-Aware Business Application Service Co-ordination in Mobile Comput-ing Environments STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 30-11-2004 Not yet

EC-BRIDGE EU-Chinese forum on eWork, eLogistics, Research networks and Broadband solutions for mobile user and worker SSA 01-06-2004 31-05-2005 30-11-2004 Yes

eLOGMAR-M Web-based and Mobile Solutions for Collaborative Work Environment with Logistics and Maritime Applications CA 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 30-11-2004 Yes

ERPI KNOWL-EDGE IST for Parliamentarians SSA 01-08-2004 31-07-2007 30-11-2004 Yes

Eu-DOMAIN enabling users for - Distance-working & Organizational Mobility using Ambient Intelligence service Networks STREP 01-06-2004 31-05-2007 30-11-2004 Not yet

IST4BALT Information Society Technologies Promotion in Baltic States CA 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 30-11-2004 Not yet LIAISON LocatIon bAsed servIceS for the enhancement of wOrking enviroNment IP 01-09-2004 29-02-2008 30-11-2004 Not yet

MobileIN Harmonised Services over Heterogeneous Mobile, IN and WLAN Infrastruc-tures STREP 01-07-2004 30-06-2006 30-11-2004 Not yet

MobiLife Mobile Life IP 01-09-2004 31-12-2006 30-11-2004 Not yet

MOSAIC Mobile Worker Support Environments: Aligning Innovation in Mobile Tech-nologies, Applications and Workplaces for Location-Independent Cooperation and Networking

SSA 01-03-2004 30-04-2005 30-11-2004 Not yet

MOSQUITO Mobile workers' secure business applications in ubiquitous environments STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 30-11-2004 Yes MULTIMOB Multilingualism and Mobility Specific Support Action SSA 01-09-2004 31-12-2005 30-11-2004 Yes MYCARVENT MobilitY and CollAboRative work in European Vehicle Emergency NeTworks IP 01-10-2004 30-09-2007 30-11-2004 Yes

POMPEI P2P location and presence mobile services for managing crisis and disaster situations STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 30-11-2004 Not yet

SIMS Supporting Innovation of SMEs in the Mobile Services and Application Supply Business SSA 01-07-2004 30-06-2006 30-11-2004 Yes

SNOW Services for NOmadic Workers STREP 01-10-2004 30-09-2006 30-11-2004 Yes ULTRA Ultra portable augmented reality for industrial maintenance applications STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 30-11-2004 Not yet wearIT@work Empowering the mobile worker by wearable computing IP 01-06-2004 30-11-2008 30-11-2004 Not yet

2.3.2.7 “Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment”



3DTV Integrated Three-Dimensional Television - Capture, Transmission and Display NoE 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 25-11-2004 Yes

18


AXMEDIS Automating Production of Cross Media Content for Multichannel Distribution IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 25-11-2004 Yes CON-TENT4ALL Cross-platform Tools for Community Content Publishing STREP 25-11-2004 Not yet

GameTools Advanced Tools for Developing Highly Realistic Computer Games STREP 01-09-2004 30-04-2007 25-11-2004 Yes HOLONICS HOLographic & ActiON Capture TechniqueS STREP 25-11-2004 Not yet INCCOM Integrated cross-media customer oriented models CA 01-09-2004 31-10-2006 25-11-2004 Yes INSCAPE Interactive Storytelling for Creative People IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 25-11-2004 Not yet IPerG Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming IP 29-02-200801-09-2004 25-11-2004 Yes IP-RACINE Integrated Project - Research Area CINE IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 25-11-2004 Not yet M-PIPE The Media Pipe STREP 01-10-2004 31-03-2007 25-11-2004 Yes NM2 New Media for a New Millennium IP 31-08-200701-09-2004 25-11-2004 Yes PENG PErsonalised News content programminG STREP 25-11-2004 Not yet

POLYMNIA PersOnalised Leisure and Entertainment over cross Media iNtellIgent PlAt-forms STREP 01-10-2004 31-03-2007 25-11-2004 Yes

REVEAL THIS REtrieval of VidEo And Language for The Home user in an Information Soci-ety STREP 01-11-2004 30-04-2007 25-11-2004 Not yet

WalkOnWeb Interactive Roadmap for Long Distance Rambling STREP 01-10-2004 31-03-2007 25-11-2004 Yes

WorldScreen Layered Compression Technologies for Digital Cinematography and Cross Media Conversion STREP 25-11-2004 Not yet

2.3.2.8 “GRID-based systems for solving complex problems”



AKOGRIMO Access to Knowledge through the Grid in a mobile World IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 06-12-2004 Not yet

CoreGrid European Research Network on Foundations, Software Infrastructures and Applications for large scale distributed, Grid and Peer-to-Peer Technologies NoE 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 06-12-2004 Not yet

DataMiningGrid Data Mining Tools and Services for Grid Computing Environments STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 06-12-2004 Yes GRIDCOORD ERA Pilot on a co-ordinated Europe-wide initiative in Grid Research SSA 01-09-2004 28-02-2006 06-12-2004 Not yet HPC4U Highly Predictable Cluster for Intranet-Grids STREP 01-06-2004 30-05-2007 06-12-2004 Yes InteliGRID InteroperabilIty of Virtual Organisations on Complex Semantic Grid STREP 01-09-2004 28-02-2007 06-12-2004 Yes K-WF GRID Knowledge-based Workflow System for Grid Applications Terminals STREP 01-09-2004 28-02-2007 06-12-2004 Not yet NextGRID The Next Generation Grid IP 31-08-200801-09-2004 06-12-2004 Yes

19


OntoGrid Paving the way for knowledgeable GRID services and systems STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 06-12-2004 Not yet PROVENANCE Enabling and Supporting Provenance in Grids for Complex Problems STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 06-12-2004 Yes

SIMDAT Data Grids for Process and Product Development using Numerical Simulation and Knowledge Discovery IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2008 06-12-2004 Yes

UniGridS Uniform Interface to Grid Services STREP 31-08-200601-09-2004 06-12-2004 Not yet 2.3.2.9 “Improving risk management”



DELVE Restructuring Demining rEsearch from RegionaL, initiatiVes within Europe SSA 01-12-2004 30-11-2006 30-11-2004 Not yet EURITRACK EURopean Illicit TRAfficking Countermeasures Kit STREP 01-10-2004 30-09-2007 30-11-2004 Not yet EUROPCOM Emergency Ultrawideband RadiO for Positioning and COMmunications STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 30-11-2004 Yes MITRA Monitoring and Intervention for the TRAnsportation of Dangerous Goods STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 30-11-2004 Not yet OASIS Open Advanced System for crisIS management IP 01-09-2004 28-08-2008 30-11-2004 Not yet ORCHESTRA Open Architecture and Spatial Data Infrastructure for Risk Management IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 30-11-2004 Not yet

RESCUER Improvement of the emergency Risk management through seECUrE mobile mechatRonic support to bomb disposal STREP 01-11-2004 30-04-2008 30-11-2004 Not yet

STREAM Technology to support sustainable humanitarian crisis management STREP 01-12-2004 31-05-2008 30-11-2004 Not yet WIN Wide Information Network for risk management IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 30-11-2004 Not yet

2.3.2.10 “eInclusion”



AAL Ambient Assisted Living SSA 01-09-2004 31-08-2006 25-11-2004 Yes

ASK-IT Ambient Intelligence System of Agents for Knowledge-based and Integrated Services for Mobility Impaired users IP 01-10-2004 30-09-2008 25-11-2004 Yes

BenToWeb Benchmarking Tools for the Web STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 25-11-2004 Not yet COGAIN Communication by Gaze Interaction NoE 31-08-200901-09-2004 25-11-2004 Yes CWST Conferences, Workshops, Seminars and Tutorials to Support e-Inclusion SSA 01-07-2004 30-06-2009 25-11-2004 Not yet EIAO European Internet Accessibility Observatory STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 25-11-2004 Yes ENABLED Enhanced Network Accessibility for the Blind and Visually Impaired IP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 25-11-2004 Yes EUAIN EUropean Accessible Information Network CA 30-04-200701-11-2004 25-11-2004 Not yet

20


21

HEARCOM Hearing in the Communication Society IP 28-02-200901-09-2004 25-11-2004 Yes MAPPED Mobilisation and Accessibility Planning for People with Disabilities STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 25-11-2004 Yes MICOLE Multimodal collaboration environment for inclusion of visually impaired children STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 25-11-2004 Yes MOVEMENT Modular Versatile Mobility Enhancement Technology STREP 01-09-2004 31-08-2007 25-11-2004 Not yet SUPPORT-EAM Supporting the creation of an e-Accessibility Mark SSA 01-10-2004 31-03-2006 25-11-2004 Yes

Annex B: Questionnaire for projects in call 2

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR IST-PROJECTS PARTICIPATING

IN THE 2ND CALL OF THE EU FP6 RESEARCH PROGRAMME

This questionnaire aims to identify possible standardization issues related to the results of your pro-ject, in order for these issues to be addressed through the COPRAS project and to facilitate your project’s cooperation with relevant standards bodies or industry consortia.

The questionnaire contains 2 sections focusing on general issues related to research and standardi-sation and to the specific standardization areas your project will address. Please complete both sec-tions; at the end of the questionnaire, you can enter additional remarks you may have.

CONTACT & GENERAL INFORMATION

Project acronym Respondent E-mail address Start of project End of project

1.1 Will your project deliver technologies, specifications or other output that are in-

tended to be European or global standards or otherwise may contribute to stan-dardisation work?

1.2 Is your project in this respect prepared to cooperate with standards bodies, and

have you already planned this cooperation? Do you require COPRAS help in this process?

1.3 Does your project have specific work packages addressing activities required to in-

terface with standards bodies and if so, how many man/months are budgeted for this?

1.4 Is your project in the process of deploying or coordinating standardisation related

activity with other EU funded projects either in FP6 or other Framework Pro-grammes and if so, could you please list the other projects involved?

1. GENERAL ISSUES


Is your project already in the process of deploying standardisation related activity in coordination with one of more standards bodies or industry consortia and if so, which activity does this concern and with organisations are involved? Standards body or industry consortium Activity

1.5

2. STANDARDISATION ISSUES ADDRESSING SPECIFIC AREAS

In this section you are invited to specify the areas where your project plans contributing to stan-dardization issues.

In order for COPRAS to get a good understanding of the issues you will be addressing, it is impor-tant that you also specify the particular topics you will be addressing as well as the technologies, specifications or other output (e.g. guidelines or ‘best practice’ documents) that you envisage being candidates for European or global standards activities, or otherwise expect to be relevant in sup-porting or initiating standardisation processes.

Please also indicate whether it concerns issues playing an important – or even a key – role in your project or whether they represent minor issues (please tick the appropriate boxes).

2.1 Areas of standardization <Please indicate the area(s) where your project intends to contribute to ongoing standardization or to standardization processes yet to be initiated>

Key area Important area

<area 1: please specify>

Minor area Key area Important area






Minor area 2.2 Nature of issues to be standardized <Please specify which issues, elements or aspects in the areas indicated in 2.1 your project in-tends to standardize>

Key issue Important issue

<issue 1: please specify>

Minor issue Key issue Important issue






Minor issue 2.3 Nature of deliverables to be produced

23


<Please specify the nature of the deliverables (i.e. technologies, specifications, guideline docu-ments, tests, etc.) you plan to deliver in the areas indicated in 2.1>

Key deliverable

Important deliverable

<deliverable 1: please specify>

Minor deliverable

Key deliverable



Minor deliverable

Key deliverable



Minor deliverable

Key deliverable



Minor deliverable

2.4 Timeframes <Please indicate the timeframe in which your project plans to produce the deliverables indicated in 2.1> <deliverable 1: please specify timeframe>

<deliverable 2: please specify timeframe>



3. ADDITIONAL REMARKS
3.1 <Please enter any additional remarks that you may have here>
WHEN COMPLETED, PLEASE RETURN THIS QUESTIONNAIRE TO:

Via e-mail: [email protected] Via mail: COPRAS

c/o CEN, rue de Stassart 36 1050 Brussels, Belgium

COPRAS Project management:

ConTeSt consultancy Bart Brusse +31-24-3448453 (phone) +31-24-3448247 (fax) +31-653-225260 (mobile) [email protected]

24


Annex C: Information package for projects in call 2

Information Package for FP6 IST Projects in call 2

Research that is carried out under European Framework Programmes is often closely connected to standardization. Projects addressing technical or scientific issues in many cases will produce results that can be used to develop a new standard, to improve an existing one, or to anticipate a future standard.

Even projects that do not primarily aim at developing standards, may contain elements supporting ongoing or new standardisation processes and may benefit from interfacing with standards bodies for the dissemination of their results. Research projects are therefore required to keep standards bodies informed on contributions they could make to standardization processes.

The Cooperation Platform for Research and Standards (COPRAS) addresses this close connection between IST research projects and standardization and aims to provide research projects with the means to fulfil this obligation in the most efficient way.

Why choose to standardise?

Standardisation processes are carried out for a number of different reasons, such as the establish-ment of compatibility and interoperability, the removal of trade barriers through harmonisation or the safety and health of citizens. The three groups of stakeholders generally benefiting from stan-dards are industry, consumers and governments.

However, although sometimes neglected, standardization is also beneficial to research projects de-siring to upgrade their results and wishing to better exploit their output. For example, developing new standards can help to increase the quality of a product or even build a competitive advantage; it can create the ability to test according to internationally agreed principles or it may in some cases enable the exploitation of intellectual property.

In addition, participating in standardization processes may bring projects higher international rec-ognition, networking opportunities, or the ability to cooperate with a variety of specialists, thus benefiting from their collective expertise. This may be specifically relevant when standardization work proves to be expensive and time consuming, and cooperation with outside experts may pro-vide projects the leverage needed when their budgets are insufficient.

A ‘Cooperation Platform for Research and Standards’

Major standards bodies have now initiated the Cooperation Platform for Research and Standards to facilitate cooperation between the research community and standards bodies and provide research projects with information on standardisation processes. COPRAS is an FP6 Specific Support Ac-tion project serving as a platform for research projects seeking to upgrade their results through in-terfacing with standards bodies. The project was launched 1st February 2004 by the European Stan-dards Organizations CEN, CENELEC and ETSI together with The Open Group and the World Wide Web Consortium, and will run for 3 years.

COPRAS addresses Thematic Priority Area number 2: ‘Information Society technologies’ (IST) and is linked to the eEurope initiative. One of the objectives of the IST Programme for 2003-2004 is to ensure European leadership in the generic and applied technologies at the heart of the knowl-edge economy. In this respect the Programme also states that “experience has shown that the de-velopment of common visions and consensus building is a key element of European successes in IST”. The COPRAS project will bring together the research and standardization aspects of the eEu-

25


rope activity and optimise the interface between FP6 IST projects and standardization. In doing so, it will speed up industry and market adoption of research results, and generate feedback on their acceptance and usage.

Consortium partners

The five consortium partners participating in the COPRAS project are all members of the ICT Standards Board (ICTSB), the coordinating forum for ICT standardization in Europe. Through the ICTSB they offer the research community an entry point to ongoing or planned standardisation ac-tivities and access to (technical) groups focusing on standardisation of the many different aspects of IST. In addition, the three standardisation organisations CEN, CENELEC and ETSI have liaisons and arrangements in place with ISO, IEC and ITU for cooperation and standardisation on a global level. The Members of the ICT Standards Board are listed in the table below:

European Standards Organisations • European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) • European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) • European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)

Industry Groups and Consortia • The Open Group • OASIS • World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) • TeleManagement Forum • ATM Forum • Internet Society • Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project • European Broadcasting Union (EBU) • European Committee for Banking Stan-

dards (ECBS) • RosettaNet

• ECMA International • Object Management Group (OMG) • European Communications and consumer

electronics Technology Industry Associa-tion (EICTA)

• European Road transport Telematics Imple-mentation Coordination Organisation (ER-TICO)

Through COPRAS, its partners have adapted their processes and deliverables in ways which opti-mise the interface with Research and Technology Development (RTD) and specifically facilitate the participation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Consequently, they can provide a rapid, open consensus building process, involving direct participation of interested parties and re-sulting in consensus publications, which are upwardly compatible to full European Standards where necessary and have a proven track-record of acceptability as the basis for International Stan-dards.

COPRAS’ goals & objectives

The interface between standards and research is crucial to the success of both activities, and experi-ence shows that standards emerging from co-operative research have a higher rate of success in international consensus building processes. Therefore, the way to optimise this interface has been considered at length under successive Framework Programmes, so far with varying degrees of suc-cess. COPRAS’ objective is to act as a platform for FP6 IST projects, wishing to upgrade their de-liverables through standardization during the course of their research. Also, it will generate generic information and guidelines on the interfacing between research and standardization, supporting those proposing projects in subsequent calls or Framework Programmes.

One of the essential aspects of this interfacing process is to ensure that standardization and research proceed in parallel enabling cross-fertilization. This will ensure that the standards community can rapidly receive contributions from the research community and that research projects are familiar with the latest developments in standardization. However, in ICT standardization activities are spread out over hundreds of organizations and consortia, not encouraging interoperability in any of the key areas. By providing a catalytic focal point for standardization activities, COPRAS enables research projects to overcome a potential barrier to standard-based solutions by allowing them to avoid the workload of trying to find which of these organizations are most relevant to them, conse-quently giving them a high control over the output of these processes. It thus provides research pro-jects with a cost-effective way of meeting their contractual obligation of setting up an interface with the standards world and gives them a means to validate their work with a wider audience.

26


Moreover, during the course of their activities, projects may find themselves producing a consid-erably larger amount of standards related deliverables than originally anticipated and consequently may not have sufficient resources for passing all output through standards bodies. In addition pro-jects often deliver most of their standards related towards the end of their lifespan, and find them-selves confronted with a relatively narrow window of opportunity to promote the results in stan-dardization processes. COPRAS aims to address these issues as well by interfacing with projects at a relatively early point in time during the course of their activities.

Nevertheless, not all IST projects may generate standards related output and not all projects – for various reasons – may be capable to cooperate with COPRAS. To determine this, COPRAS will survey all FP6 IST projects for potentially standards related issues and standards related output, and will analyse the information gathered. As far as call 2 is concerned, COPRAS will focus on gathering information from projects in the following Strategic Objectives:

2.3.2.3 Open development platforms for software and services 2.3.2.4 Cognitive systems 2.3.2.5 Embedded systems 2.3.2.6 Applications and services for the mobile user and worker 2.3.2.7 Cross-media content for leisure and entertainment 2.3.2.8 GRID-based systems for solving complex problems 2.3.2.9 Improving risk management 2.3.2.10 eInclusion

To ensure that projects with standards-related output in these areas are actually addressed and in-vited to participate in the platform, COPRAS will ask all projects in these Strategic Objectives to provide information by filling in a questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire and the informa-tion gathering process will be published March 2005.

Standardization Action Plans

As a second step in the process, all information will be analysed and projects with relevant stan-dards related output will be selected and invited to participate in a kick-off meeting focusing on the development of tailor-made Standardization Action Plans for each of the projects. These Plans will serve as a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ between research projects and COPRAS, and will for example define milestones, deliverables, target dates and mutual responsibilities. In this way, pro-jects’ participation in relevant standardization working groups can be ensured and – where consid-ered necessary – new standardization activities can be promoted or initiated.

Contributions from research projects are expected to be made on a voluntary basis and may for ex-ample include technical specifications, guideline documents or ‘best practice’ statements. More-over, contributions may contain complete drafts, may address parts of standards already in the process of being drafted, or may even focus on new areas of work.

In addition to research projects’ contributions to standardisation, the Action Plans will also indicate necessary contributions from the standardisation community to research projects. This will ensure that projects requiring advice with respect to the most relevant standardization activities are ade-quately informed on the “state of the art” in those areas most relevant to them. Moreover, when appropriate, Standardization Action Plans will include the provision of support to projects facilitat-ing the drafting of contributions to standardization work.

An overview of the planned methodological steps leading to the definition of Standardization Ac-tion Plans for projects in call 2 is displayed in the diagram below:

08/05 07/05 06/0505/0511/04 01/0512/04 02/05 03/05 04/05 11/0510/0509/05

Information gathering Information analysis & project selection Kick-off meeting Inviting of contributions

Standards Action Plans

27


To take the implementation of Standardization Action Plans forward, COPRAS will structure and maintain cooperation and communication between relevant standardization groups and research projects by implementing and maintain adequate tools and mechanisms. Where necessary it will initiate meetings and organise presentations from research projects in standards bodies. It will ar-range and maintain exchange of information between the various participating research projects, and it will make available overall information on the progress and deliverables of the COPRAS platform.

COPRAS will address FP6 IST projects across most of the Strategic Objectives areas and define ways to provide a permanent improvement and optimisation of the interface between research and standardisation. Therefore communication, information and promotion activities are of specific importance to ensure COPRAS’ goals can be successfully achieved, and that research projects can actually add value to their results through cooperating via the platform.

A variety of promotional activities will therefore be deployed to further improve contacts and communication between the IST research community and standardisation bodies. In addition, these activities will support the dissemination of the project’s results beyond the research and standardi-sation domains, thus enhancing the visibility of both the COPRAS project and the individual se-lected research projects in the ‘outside’ world.

Towards the end of the project’s lifetime, overall results and relevant deliverables of the COPRAS platform will be presented at an Open Meeting in that will address both the standardisation and the IST research community.

Summary & targeted results

Many research projects may find it difficult to find the right point in time or the right way to con-solidate their research efforts: while there is the need to build momentum for interfacing with stan-dards bodies throughout the project’s life time, standardisation processes take time and drafting standards is generally being done on a voluntary basis. Resources for these activities may not al-ways be foreseen in project budgets and – specifically for SMEs – standardization processes may therefore be considered a significant burden.

COPRAS will help research projects to define the right momentum for starting these processes and will facilitate the interface between research and standardisation in such a way that the time gap between the availability of research projects’ final deliverables and the availability of standards resulting from them will be shortened significantly.

This will make standards available earlier to industry and the general public. COPRAS will there-fore support furthering European leadership in the generic and applied technologies at the heart of the knowledge economy. Moreover, it will help research projects upgrade their results in the most cost effective way and will help standards bodies reduce overlap and better organise the flow of relevant material.

Through COPRAS, the standards bodies have taken the initiative to address the requirement that is upon research projects to interface with the standards community, and to optimise processes in-volved with this requirement. This initiative, however, should not prevent research projects from pre-empting the sequential steps COPRAS intends to follow and from contacting the project either directly, or through other standards bodies that they feel could be relevant to their specific activi-ties. For this purpose, additional information on the COPRAS project can be obtained from the COPRAS web site or from the project management as indicated below.

Web site www.copras.org Mail address c/o CEN, rue de Stassart 36

1050 Brussels, Belgium

Project management ConTeSt consultancy Bart Brusse +31-24-3448453 (phone) +31-24-3448247 (fax) +31-653-225260 (mobile) [email protected]

28

COPRAS Information gathering report call 2 · 2005. 3. 11. · Document Information gathering...

Documents

Transcript of COPRAS Information gathering report call 2 · 2005. 3. 11. · Document Information gathering...